EE to invest £1.5bn on network
EE has announced that it is to invest a further £1.5bn on its network within the next few years.
The investment is part of a long-term plan to ensure that there is coverage for mobile phone services in every part of the UK, including communities that have not had coverage to date; in addition, the company has committed to both 4G and voice coverage for 90% of the UK and the doubling of 4G speeds to 90% of the population.
The company has plans to introduce 4G+ services to the busiest cities in the UK, doubling existing capacity and enabling speeds of up to 150Mbps.
£500m of the budget will be allocated to bringing services to remote areas. This can be achieved with new technology known as micro network technology, which will enable the connection of more than 1,500 rural areas. There are also plans to use the low frequency 800MHz spectrum to add a further 1,500+ square miles to the EE coverage and to introduce 4G Voice services and Wi-Fi Calling.
The latter will enable customers to make calls and send texts to areas where there is no mobile signal, using Wi-Fi services instead. 4G Voice will be used on the same network as 4G.
The CEO of EE, Olaf Swantee, said that these changes will focus strongly on rural areas of the UK and will make more use of smart devices, as customers are relying on such devices more and more on a daily basis.